Urban outfitter

It's been a strange year for Donna Karan. She started by selling her company for $450m in January, but then her husband died from lung cancer in June and her DKNY fashion show had to be cancelled - it was to be held on 11 September. But, discovers Tamsin Blanchard, the queen of New York hasn't lost her lust for life

It's her eyes. Some people have a strong, steady gaze. Others - especially ones involved in the fashion business - have a glazed, slightly vacant look about them. Some appear downright shifty. But Donna Karan has these eyes that look as though they might pop out of her head. They dart about, constantly looking for the next thing to do, wide open, alert, searching. It's as though her brain is on overtime, and her eyes are constantly trying to keep up. And that is, of course, exactly what you would expect from the Queen of New York fashion. Instead of red blood cells, you imagine, she has microscopic yellow cabs running through her veins. Her arteries are like avenues. She is Manhattan.

She has that energy that only seems to exist in the Big Apple. The sort of energy that, like static electricity, makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Yet here she is, Ms DKNY herself, telling me that she's at her most comfortable trekking in the hills, or walking along a beach. Far from the urban, go-getting, thrusting, power-crazed businesswoman you might expect, she is a lover of nature, of big skies and crunchy autumn leaves. She fixes you with a long, hard stare and smiles her infectious, open grin. 'I know it sounds really strange,' she says, in a voice that is a softer, slightly throatier version of a Ruby Wax drawl. 'I'm not your consensual New Yorker. I think that's the odd part of the whole thing. I have to be around the sky and light, and sometimes I feel New York coming in on me. I grew up on Long Island. I grew up on the water, so I'm used to being in nature, and when you're used to being around nature, it's really hard being around the urbanness of the city. It's like I'm trying to find the calm in the chaos.'

There hasn't been much calm for Donna Karan this year. In January, she sold her name and her company Gabrielle Studio for $450m to the French luxury goods company LVMH. Last month, she completed the deal which sold off her distribution and manufacturing company Donna Karan International for a further $243m. Her personal fortune was estimated to be boosted by $320m, which isn't bad for a kid who came from 'a very simple background', paid for herself to get through design school and constantly struggled with the conflicts of being a working mum. And then, in June, her husband, business partner and soulmate Stephan Weiss died of lung cancer. They had renewed their wedding vows on the beach at one of their favourite destinations, Parrot Cay. She sometimes still talks about him in the present tense.

As she says, it was a fairy-tale romance. They met on a blind date when Donna was 18 and he was 28. But it wasn't until years later, after she had met, married and eventually divorced her first husband Mark Karan, that they were finally able to get together. 'Stephan, my ponytailed husband, was my world,' she wrote in the recent issue of her in-house magazine, Woman to Woman. 'He was my lover, my inspiration, my guide, my strength, my creative and business partner - my everything.' In 1992, when they created their first fragrance, she said she wanted it to smell 'like Casablanca lilies, red suede and the back of Stephan's neck'. A sculptor, who had his own studio in Greenwich Village, he designed the bottle that was inspired by the curve of a woman's back - presumably Donna's.

When the Donna Karan store finally opened in late August on Madison Avenue after three years of work and planning, it must have been a difficult time for Karan. It was Stephan who had encouraged her to start the company in 1984 when she left her job as designer at New York label Anne Klein. He was the backbone of the business, the earth to her live wire, but he never set foot inside the new store. 'I could not believe he never saw the store,' she says. 'When we were building here, it was so dusty he never came in. It's the first thing I did that I didn't share the physical space with him.' She looks around, as though seeing it through his eyes and laughs. 'He would tell you everything that's wrong with it - he was a Virgo.'

By 10 September, chaos had taken over. 'I was having a really bad day,' she says. It was the start of New York fashion week, and tension was building. Her DKNY collection was due to be shown the following day - her crystal wedding anniversary - at 5pm in a tent at Bryant Park. 'I was not looking forward to facing the press, you know, doing a show without Stephan was hard for me. And I hadn't slept the night before, so on the morning of the 11th I heard this explosion. I live downtown. I was so tired. I had just gotten to bed at five in the morning. And somebody who was with me said, "The world will never be the same," and handed me the remote control. I went outside my window and I was seeing what was on television, and it freaked me out. Completely.'

The collections were presented the following week in intimate showrooms with only a few people - the American buyers and press who really had to see a fashion show in order for their businesses to survive - present. The week after that, Karan flew to Milan and talked a select bunch from the European press through her new collection for spring/summer 2002. Business is business and, as her good friend Barbra Streisand would no doubt say, the show must go on. You don't sell your company to LVMH for millions of dollars and leave it to freefall just because the world seems to be falling in around you.

No wonder, then, that her eyes were mercurial that afternoon as she darted from a bright pink, light-as-air, boned evening gown to a cleverly constructed jacket with a stretch at the back to give it shape, and which she kept crumpling up into a small ball to show just how soft and new this half-jacket half-cardigan really was. 'All I kept on saying was light, light, light,' she says, and then whispers, 'air, air, air. I wanted the clothes to float. I wanted weightlessness and structure at the same time. And then I wanted techno but couture. So it was, how can I make something real but on a couture level?'

This is typical Donna-speak: one juxta- position after another. She focused on each editor, selling her wares. And, of course, it all seemed to make perfect sense. The clothes were fresh and modern, comfortable and cool. You could pull on a dress and wear it as casually as a T-shirt.

Since the mid-80s, when Karan revolutionised the working woman's wardrobe with practical solutions that made getting dressed in the morning as easy as making toast, women have been relying on the designer. Her 'system' of dressing started with a 'body' or all-in-one foundation garment, and the idea was that you added layer after layer - a wrap skirt, a stretch blazer - until you were comfortable. It's a principle she still adheres to. Donna Karan's ability to build women's wardrobes rather than her own ego must have something to do with the fact that she is a woman. Her collections are born out of her own need for a lighter jacket; an evening frock with a built-in corset so she doesn't have to wear a bra, or just something big, soft and comfy.

'There are a lot of us out there who would like to say it's business as usual,' she says. 'But it's not. Business is not as usual.' It's a frank confession. One that you cannot imagine the Calvins or the Ralphs of this world openly admitting. It's two months after the World Trade Center tragedy and Karan has just completed two television interviews before sitting down for lunch at the back of her Madison Avenue flagship store. Meryl Streep is upstairs, looking for something to wear to an event later that week. And downstairs, as shoppers wander past the designer holding court at the big, solid table in between her bed throws and black lacquer homewares, Karan throws out the occasional warm 'Welcome!' as though they have just walked into her home. People seem remarkably unphased by her presence. They also seem to be venturing out into the shops for the first time since the disaster. The city, this far uptown at least, feels as though it is getting back on its feet, returning - as much as it ever can - to normal. But, as Karan has said, business is not as usual. There are $3,800 shearling coats to sell; $995 cashmere sweaters. And this really is not the time.

'Commercially, I think I would like to use this as a profound shift in the world. I think the level of excellence is going to be anted up, things will have to have a rhyme and a reason for being. Selectivity. Just to make another garment right now_ I'm not interested. If the garment's going to make a difference, if I could make a better pair of shoes, and the perfect handbag_ I can't tell you how excited I am.'

Just as she is a New Yorker who prefers the open space and the quiet of the country, she seems to be at odds with herself as a fashion designer who doesn't believe in making a collection just for the sake of it - to keep herself and her employees in a job. Fashion is, after all, about stuff that nobody needs. While the LVMH deal is probably the most important moment in her business career since she and her husband began 17 years ago, it seems singularly unimportant right now. 'I think it's a larger picture we're looking at,' she says. 'The world situation. I don't think life is ever going to be the same. And I thought LVMH was the big shift, but there are so many changes in my life right now. I think we are all starting on a whole new era. I think you are, I am_ It's a different perspective. It's healthy some- where. I think the opportunity to look at life differently is really important.'

Karan's life is already pretty different to the lives most of us are used to. She doesn't, however, spend her millions on yachts, flashy art collections or entertaining celebrity friends, but on living an alternative, spiritual lifestyle to the full. 'People say I have an enormous amount of energy,' she says. 'But I also have a short fuse. You know, I deplete my energy really quickly because I put so much out there. I need a replenishment. So that's why it was for my own physical wellbeing that I had to look for an alternative way of living. You couldn't go at the pace I was going, and go through everything that I was going through, and not respond to the fact that your body couldn't handle it. I'm not 27 years old any more.'

She practises yoga at 7.30am for two hours every day, usually with her personal instructor. 'For me, yoga was the natural thing,' she says. She began doing it as a teenager, when she dreamt of becoming a dancer. 'I luuuuurve back bends. I love opening up, stretching out. Yoga keeps me grounded, it keeps me alert, it keeps me feeling energetic, appreciating what I see, keeping my eyes open. It keeps the energy going, and it also calms me down.' After standing on her hands for a few minutes, she says, she feels like she is ready for anything. 'I'm extremely limber. My challenge is my strength. Your yoga tells you what kind of person you are. My girlfriend and I both do yoga and she's really, really strong and I'm really, really limber. She's very grounded and very disciplined and very structured. I could fly. Stephan always said I would jump out of the plane and he would make sure I had the parachute.'

When she was moved to tears in San Francisco by the purity of an exhibition of sculpted stones by Izumi Masatoshi, she bought a couple - two 'chairs' hewn out of pale, roughly textured stone. They are called Breathe. Originally, she bought them for her apartment, but they were too heavy, so she decided to have them lifted by crane into the Zen-like water garden at the back of her shop. She laughs at the trouble they caused, but at the same time tells me that they are by the man who cut stones for Isamu Noguchi, and you sense that just looking at them makes her feel calm inside. She has two 'small' houses, built next to each other on the beach at the Hamptons, and commutes to New York by seaplane or helicopter, depending on the weather. And she has a chef, Jill Pettijohn - they met in California and she now works for Donna full-time - who travels with her wherever she goes. Jill specialises in what she calls 'life food' and is cooking lunch for us today.

To start, there are 'raw-food sushi rolls'. Karan tucks in with her dark wood chopsticks, which are bent at the top to make gripping them easier. 'Unbelievable! I've been eating like this now since June. I was trying to work out what do I really need to eat? And Jill came up with this. I think this food has a meaning. I know that sounds a little silly, but it isn't, because I can go to 10 million Italian restaurants but I can't find a good restaurant that cooks like this.' Everything seems to centre on seeds. Nothing contains wheat. 'You know, it's not about being on a diet, it's about eating healthily but deliciously,' says Karan between mouthfuls. 'You should never feel deprived. The word diet is wrong. Maybe that's the problem. My dream was always to have a place where you could eat and be nurtured at the same time.' The original idea was that the back of the shop would be a tea house, selling sushi, salad and soup. At the moment, Karan uses it for the odd lunch or dinner. Every so often, she asks Jill to tell us about the food. 'These are life-food sushi rolls,' says Jill quietly. 'They are made with nuts and vegetables. And the soup is a life-food. It's tomato, fennel and a little swirl of pumpkin - not heated above 108 C, so the enzymes are still alive. It's much better for your digestion.' It also stops you burning your tongue. The courses keep on coming. There is an amazing whole green vegetable on a platter with wilted sprouting broccoli. 'Oh Jill, what is that?' It's a broc-o-flower, a cross between broccoli and a cauliflower. 'It looks so alien, beautiful.' We look rather than eat. Then there are seed-crust tartlets filled with vegetables. And little cookies made from brazil nuts and apricots. 'This is called couture, that's couture food,' she enthuses. 'I used to cook all the time years ago,' she says, but she gave it up because she didn't have time.

I ask if she thinks she leads a privileged life, if she has it all. 'No,' she answers quickly. 'I don't have it all. I think I've been gifted with passion. I can't explain it. There is a passion for creativity. And life. To be able to experience it on every one of its elements is important to me - you know, family, earth, I must be around nature.' About five minutes later, Karan suddenly returns to the subject. The word 'privileged' is not one she relates to. Her success has not been handed to her on a plate. 'You know, I am so hands-on. In saying the word privileged, it seems like that's a "do not touch me". And I sweep the floors and I get my hands dirty. I'm not "do not touch". I try on all the clothes. I am physically, emotionally involved in touching and feeling. I love the touching, the travelling, the finding, hunting at the flea market down on Portobello.'

Karan is fiercely independent. Perhaps it is a result of her father dying in a car crash when she was three, and her mother having to go out to work for a living, leaving Donna's older sister, Gail, in charge. From the age of 14, Donna worked in a shop on Wednesday nights after school and at the weekends. 'I always worked. I paid for my college education. My mother was a working woman, somebody in the industry, so I was independent. It was tough. I think that's probably the guilt that I carry today - being a working woman with my daughter. That one's tough for me. I don't think I could resolve that one ever. I don't know if it's being Jewish. Working mother; Jewish_ you're dead.' She snorts with laughter.

The week her daughter Gabby was born, Karan's boss at the time, Anne Klein, died of breast cancer. She had a choice: stay at home with her baby or go and keep the company running. She chose the latter, which means, in reality, she tried to do both. 'Times have changed,' she says. 'There is more under- standing of working mothers. I don't think it was as big an issue.' Gabby is now 27, and looks startlingly like her mother - the same strong, dark features. She arrives at the store for a photoshoot that has been scheduled for a glossy magazine. They are going to be photographed in Central Park. The pair enjoy a healthy banter, more like sisters than mother and daughter. If there is any resentment, it is well under the surface. They are, says Karan, having a role reversal. Like Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous , Gabby is the sensible one. 'Yes definitely. Much more grounded.' Does Donna think she is getting a little eccentric? 'Mmm-hmm,' she nods. 'I think if I'm getting anything, I'm probably a little bit more withdrawn - looking for more privacy, more quiet time.'

Mother and daughter are often mistaken for sisters, which pleases Donna. Certainly, she's the one with the more interesting, off-beat style of dressing. She's partial to wearing an accessory that looks like a huge fishbone made out of leather over one shoulder. There's usually a crystal somewhere, that she will hold and rub. The evening before our interview, she hosted the launch of Iman's new book with the ex-model's husband David Bowie. Iman wore a gold devoré column dress from Karan's collection. The designer wore layers of black, with a stretch top that she kept tugging off one shoulder, and on her finger a huge rock - a rough, antique diamond, the biggest and most rugged I have ever seen - that was a present from Stephan when they renewed their wedding vows.

As they set off for their Central Park walk, they laugh at each other's looks. 'Could you put a few more layers on?' asks Gabby incredulously, and her mother buckles with laughter. She's wearing distressed leather boots, an asymmetric Tinkerbell skirt, a huge bearskin of a cashmere cardigan that she wraps around herself, and a belt around her hips with a furry bag hanging off it.

Since starting her new way of eating, Karan says she has lost 9lb. It is gratifying to know that Karan is as likely as any other woman to look in the mirror and ask, 'Does my bum look big in this?' 'I'm very, very sensitive to that fear of the mirror,' she says. It's a fear she knows well. She has been studying it since her days as a shop assistant. 'Oh God, I hate it. It's hard for me. I mean, come on! I'm around 17-year-old girls all day long who have not an ounce on their bodies. I mean, please_ show me one person who isn't worried about getting old. It's so human. I'm 53 and the girls come in and I'm like, "What does your mother look like? Do I look like your mother?"'

Gabby has always helped out with her mother's business, whether backstage at the shows, or with the store windows, or more recently, the home collection. 'I've asked her to take over, but she refuses,' says Karan. She is pursuing her own career, writing and styling. Her mother is a hard act to follow. In spring, the designer's oldest granddaughter, 14-year-old Mackenzie, will feature in the adverts for Donna Karan Jeans, shot by Peter Lindbergh. Family and work have always been the same thing for Karan. Instead of trying to juggle the two, she has simply merged them into one. Since the LVMH deal, however, she has not had as much time as she would like to spend in East Hampton with the grandkids (she has five - three are the children of Stephan's daughter Lisa Weiss Keyes, two are from his son, Corey Weiss). She travels three times a month to Italy and Paris for meetings with manufacturers and fabric mills. 'I never know where I am,' she says.

After our interview, I follow mother and daughter into Central Park for their candid snaps. Karan pounces on a bright red leaf she sees in the grass and pockets it as a colour reference. The designer's limo follows the entourage across the park. It's waiting to take her downtown, to the two buildings in the garment district where Donna Karan takes up 15 floors. On the way, she does a phone interview with The New York Times about her friend, the veteran fashion editor Carrie Donovan who died two days before. Her last, unfinished interview had been with Karan, and as she recalls fond memories, you get the impression that this might just be one discord too many. And as I watch, her energy levels visibly ebb away. 'This is too much chaos,' she sighs. She rubs her temples. 'As Stephan used to say, I'm like an electric light switch. When I'm on, I'm on.' And for a few moments, before she begins her day at the office as most people are clocking off, those wide-open eyes stop their search and snap shut. Somebody somewhere has turned off the switch.